The god­fa­ther of Amer­i­can sci­ence-fic­tion was born in Cu­par, Fife. Robert Dun­can Milne em­i­grated to Cal­i­for­nia in around 1864 and wrote over 60 fu­tur­is­tic sto­ries.

Dum­fries-born su­per­star DJ Calvin Har­ris grew a beard in an at­tempt to win a Grammy. He thought the fa­cial hair would give him the clout to se­cure a nom­i­na­tion in the pro­ducer cat­e­gory. It worked to a cer­tain ex­tent – he was nom­i­nated but didn’t win.

The lyrics for Last Night of the Proms clas­sic Rule Bri­tan­nia and English rugby an­them Abide With Me were both writ­ten by Scots. Angli­can min­is­ter Henry Fran­cis Lyte wrote Abide With Me only weeks be­fore his death while James Thom­son – whose name is on the Scott Mon­u­ment – wrote Rule Bri­tan­nia.

Muriel Spark got her in­spi­ra­tion from us­ing note­books from one spe­cific Ed­in­burgh sta­tion­ers. She or­dered James Thin’s 72-page Both­well spi­ral note­books in bulk.

Alexan­der Hamil­ton, one of the US found­ing fa­thers, was third cousin 14 times re­moved to Sir Wil­liam Wal­lace

Muham­mad Ali once fought at Pais­ley Ice Rink – and got booed! It was back in 1965 when Ali, then known as Cas­sius Clay, fought Jimmy El­lis in an ex­hi­bi­tion bout. The crowd were unim­pressed by his per­for­mance.

Cana­dian prime min­is­ter Justin Trudeau’s great-grand­fa­ther, James Ge­orge Sin­clair, left Banff­shire for British Columbia af­ter be­ing threat­ened with the jail for fish­ing in the lo­cal laird’s stream.

Bor­ders-born botanist, Robert For­tune stole Chi­nese tea-mak­ing se­crets by dis­guis­ing him­self as a na­tive. He even owned a fake pig­tail.

The 10th Duke of Hamil­ton, Alexan­der Douglas, paid £11,000 for the or­nate an­cient tomb of an Egyp­tian princess. It wasn’t un­til he died in 1852 that it was dis­cov­ered he was far too tall to fit in­side it. There was only one so­lu­tion – his feet were cut off and placed be­side him.